This month, in celebration of Black Business Month, Capital B Gary is publishing a series of stories highlighting businesses, business owners, and entrepreneurs in the city.
The bell above the door rang as customers walked through the large fabric store that offered everything from buttons for a suit to T-shirts for a dance team.
“How long have y’all been open?” asked a customer as he looked for a particular fabric for his suit.
“45 years,” Earnestine Carey said as she helped him. Astonished, he looked around the store where each wall was covered from top to bottom with materials.
In a nook of her own, her mother, Phyllis Carey, owner of Phyllis Fabric, sat working on one of the many orders that she had to get through.
“Sewing is a love of mine,” she said. As one of Gary’s longest-standing businesses, doing what she loves daily doesn’t feel like a job.
What began as a teenager’s love for sewing has grown into a 45-year family legacy. In a city where storefronts come and go, Phyllis Fabric has stood the test of time. Today, the Broadway shop continues to thrive by offering quality fabric, alterations, custom orders, and sewing lessons that have been passed down through generations.
In seventh grade at Pulaski Junior High, Carey took her first sewing class and picked up the trade. Seeing the potential in sewing, her mother bought her first sewing machine that she has carried with her throughout her whole business career.
The fabric store was not originally in her plans. She started her journey as a seamstress with the intention of only focusing on alterations and occasionally making clothes. During that process, she kept needing supplies that constantly had to be restocked.
Her husband, Earnest Carey, suggested buying fabric wholesale, giving her both supplies for customers and stock to sell alongside her alterations.
“It was his vision,” she said.
He gutted and ripped the two-car garage at their house, removed the door and created a regular walk-in door, and did everything needed to start the store. Through word-of-mouth within the church community and family, they started picking up business. Soon, the needs outgrew the location, and she opened the doors to their first shop at 2141 Broadway.
For a time, the family enjoyed the shop. Then tragedy struck.
One Labor Day weekend, a phone call brought devastating news: The shop was on fire. The blaze destroyed everything. With no insurance, the family sold their home to buy a new building.
And in 1980, Phyllis Fabric reopened at 2169 Broadway, where it continues to serve customers today.
“My desire is to always give the customer a quality garment,” Phyllis said. ”Quality is number one, but pleasing the customer is number one as well. I don’t know if those two are the same, but we’ve been here ever since.”
At one point, the family had five locations: two in Gary and three in Chicago.
“Once you learn how to do something, you can do it over and over again, and that’s generating wealth,” Phyllis said.
Now, with only the Broadway shop still open 45 years later, Carey works alongside her daughter and other relatives. They handle alterations, sell fabric and supplies, make T-shirts, and offer classes in knitting, crocheting, and sewing.
It remains a true family business, something Carey said she still enjoys.
“I think family makes a big difference,” she said. At 75, she admits that she doesn’t move like she used to, but still wants to get the job done. “I love the fabric store, my husband did, and my children do too.”
Just as her mother once did for her, Phyllis started teaching her kids how to sew when they were around the age of 8. Much to her delight, they all stayed with it as they grew older.
“When you get 8 years old, your limbs is long enough, you’re strong enough, and you can sit at the sewing machine,” Phyllis told her kids.
Each time, her three children approached with bright eyes, asking if today would be the day they could begin.
And she continues the tradition with her grandkids and through sewing classes that she teaches at the store.
“Watching her do it every day just made me want to do it,” Earnestine said.
Sewing as a trade is in decline both nationally and in Indiana. Fewer than 15,000 tailors, dressmakers, and custom sewers are employed across the country, including only 230 in Indiana, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Another 4,370 Hoosiers work as sewing machine operators, mostly in production settings. But Phyllis said she hopes her efforts inspire others to carry the craft forward.
Phyllis credits her success to the steady support she has received from Gary residents.
“I’m hopeful I give them some hope that it can be done,” she said of her legacy in the business community.
“She has been here since all the mayors that have come through here,” Earnestine said, a fierce advocate for her mother’s work. “There’s never been a mayor in Gary that has not come in Phyllis Fabric.”
After so many years on Broadway, Carey has witnessed the rise and fall of what the street once was.
“I don’t think it was a vacant lot on Broadway,” she said, thinking back to that time. “Every lot had a building and a store.”
With the redevelopment of the city underway, she hopes to see more businesses pop up along the once-busy street. In one of the few buildings left standing, Phyllis expressed gratitude for still being able to work.
“I’m so grateful that the people came to patronize Phyllis Fabric from north, south, east, and west.”